Social services play a crucial role in supporting individuals and communities across Europe, but ensuring consistent quality standards remains a challenge. The European Social Network (ESN) is leading efforts to develop a renewed European Social Services Quality Framework, designed to address…
The long-term care robot portal site management office released the English version of the Long-term Care Tech Portal (https://robotcare.jp/en/home/index?type=pw), a portal site providing information on state-of-the-art care and age tech in Japan.
The portal site provides a wide range of…
eurohealthobservatory.who.int (03.04.2025) Long-term care often falls by the wayside in national policy dialogues. In some countries cultural norms compel families to look after older people at home. Some pundits may look at rising health care costs and argue that the public sector cannot shoulder…
eurofound.europa.eu (25.03.2025) The scale of undeclared care work (paid care work that is lawful but not declared to public authorities) in the EU is considerable. Recent estimates suggest that 6.8 million undeclared workers provide care or household services across the EU, with 2.1 million…
worldbank.org (01.03.2025) This policy note consolidates the highlights of a study funded by the Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Program (SASPP), exploring the role and operationalization of dynamic social registries in low-income and shock-prone contexts, including in the Sahel. The study is…
worldbank.org (24.03.2025) The World Bank estimates that closing the gender gap in employment would increase long-run gross domestic product (GDP) per capita by 20 percent (Pennings 2022). Realizing this achievement, however, depends not only on removing gender barriers to employment but also and…
worldbank.org (07.03.2025) Designing family-friendly policies in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) requires being cognizant of the diverse labor markets, administrative challenges, fiscal constraints, and prevailing social norms. A World Bank study in Nepal evaluated parental leave and…
oecd.org (20.03.2025) Public employment services and active labour market policies (ALMPs) have an important role to play in providing adaptable and responsive support to connect people with jobs. This policy report synthesises findings from a joint OECD-EC project on using linked administrative…
(18.03.3025) This brief aims to improve our understanding of how population ageing affects the financial sustainability of health systems, focusing on its likely impact on affordable access to health care (financial protection). It uses the Population Ageing Financial Sustainability Gap for…
theconversation.com (18.03.2025) The Medicaid system has emerged as an early target of the Trump administration’s campaign to slash federal spending. A joint federal and state program, Medicaid provides health insurance coverage for more than 72 million people, including low-income Americans and…
Vanguard News (17.03.2025) In a strategic move to expand Nigeria’s
social protection safety net, the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund, NSITF, has announced a partnership with the Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ.
voxdev.org (21.01.2025) Women in Mexico who switched to digital cash transfers face higher costs and time accessing payments but gain bargaining power. Improving ATM access, reducing fees, providing timely information on the date of transfers and boosting financial literacy could mitigate these…
cnbc.com (09.03.2025) By 2030, a quarter of Singaporeans will be 65 or over — in 2010, the figure was one in 10. Artificial intelligence is set to play a “huge” role in elderly care in Singapore, said Chuan De Foo, a research fellow at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health. But the use of…
CEPR (24.02.2025) As governments worldwide grapple with labour shortages and systemic budget shortfalls, the question arises of how unemployment insurance policies potentially contribute to this imbalance by increasing and extending nonemployment. This column argues that recent debates around…
worldbank.org (31.01.2025) Advances in technology have the potential to enhance social protection services delivery but come with risks, such as data privacy concerns, exclusion, and biases. To use digital technologies effectively, strong frameworks, infrastructure, and capacity are essential.…
ilo.org (03.02.2025) At the global level, mutuals primarily focus on providing complementary or supplementary coverage to basic health schemes. Only a small number of countries incorporate mutuals and community-based health insurance (CBHI) into the architecture of their basic health coverage…
Euractiv (03.03.2025) Poland intends to use its presidency to promote European solutions in digital healthcare transformation while working towards establishing common standards for medical data at the EU level.
Along with healthcare digitalisation, prevention, mental health and combating…
The Lancet Public Health (23.03.2025) Artificial intelligence (AI) can rapidly analyse large and complex datasets, extract tailored recommendations, support decision making, and improve the efficiency of many tasks that involve the processing of data, text, or images. As such, AI has the potential…
Euronews (13.02.2025) In many European countries, pension income is significantly lower than pre-retirement earnings from work. This makes it difficult for many older people to maintain their standard of living after retirement. Nearly one in six pensioners are at the risk-of-poverty in the EU,…
pensionpolicyinternational.com (17.02.2025) Caring for an elderly loved one might not be on your radar right now, but it’s a role many of us will take on eventually. “Almost all of us in Singapore will be, or already are, a caregiver,” Mr Dinesh Vasu Dash, CEO of the Agency for Integrated Care…
The Economic Times (06.02.2025) The Ministry of Labour and Employment is set to introduce a policy granting pension benefits to gig and platform workers through the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation. This will supplement the existing health cover under PM Jan Aarogya Yojana. The pension plan,…
Development Pathways (11.02.2025) The global shift towards digitalisation is revolutionising social protection information systems, including those in low- and middle-income countries. Gone are the days of inefficient paper-based processes: digital technologies are now indispensable for enhancing…
The Korea Times (09.02.2025) The number of national pension subscribers continues to decline due mainly to the low birthrate and aging population, data from the National Pension Service (NPS) showed Sunday, raising concerns over its sustainability.
In contrast, the number of recipients is…
who.int (04.02.2027) The year 2024 saw the Mental Health Flagship, under the Division of Country Health Policies and Systems at the WHO Regional Office for Europe, make inroads in more sustainable and accessible mental health systems through four key areas: policy, services, data collection and…
